EDITORIAL: There's a high degree of risk when kids, gummies mix

Jan. 28—Just four years ago, the Trump Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the American Lung Association teamed up to sound the alarm about a developing health crisis among our nation's youth.

E-cigarettes had become astonishingly popular among teens, with more than two million adolescent users across the country. Kids who had never smoked traditional cigarettes quickly got hooked on nicotine, and nearly 400 of them developed serious respiratory problems and possible permanent lung damage. At least six deaths were reported.

To attack this problem, in 2020 the FDA banned fruit-flavored and candy-flavored vape products. The ban was so riddled with loopholes that it had little actual impact, but that's a topic for another time.

Today, Minnesota and many other states across the nation are in the early stages of a different, yet similar, crisis. Kids who have yet to attend their first day of kindergarten are finding and eating their parents' stashes of CBD and/or THC products.

Minnesota Poison Control reported 94 incidents of children under 6 ingesting edibles in 2022, an increase of 334% percent over 2021. We suspect that many more such incidents went unreported, either because parents were unaware or because they feared legal consequences.

Nationwide, data from 2021 shows more than 3,000 such accidental exposures — a 15-fold increase from 2017 — and 98 percent of these incidents occurred in a residential setting. Hundreds of those children had to be hospitalized.

There's nothing mystifying about this problem. If you've tried CBD gummies, you know that they are sugary sweet and come in a multitude of flavors. Watermelon, grape, cherry, lemon, strawberry, peach — the list goes on and on. And, while some CBD and THC products are sold in relatively child-proof packaging, that's hardly the norm. Plastic bags and simple screw-top bottles won't deter 4-year-olds who are eager to taste the blueberry candy they saw mom and dad eat last night.

The good news is that most of these accidental childhood exposures aren't causing tragic outcomes. Kids who ingest CBD or THC can experience drowsiness, agitation, vomiting and loss of coordination, but no children have reportedly died in Minnesota as a result of consuming CBD or THC products.

Still, not all states have been so fortunate. Last May in Virginia, a 4-year-old died after eating a large number of his mother's THC gummies. And really, it's far too soon for anyone to know what long-term effects these substances could have on the still-developing brains of young children.

With the DFL-controlled Minnesota Legislature on the cusp of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, it seems likely that products containing CBD and THC are about to become even more prevalent in Minnesota homes. Before that happens, we need answers to a very important question: How can Minnesota protect its children?

Given the government's lack of success in prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products, we see little likelihood or enthusiasm for a ban on flavored CBD and THC products. That train left the station long ago and has gained too much speed.

But we see no reason that CBD and THC products couldn't be sold in child-resistant containers. Or, at the very least, such containers should be available — perhaps free of charge — at the point of sale, so that parents could transfer the products into a generic, uninteresting, harder-to-open package before they leave the store.

Also, we are tempted to say that laws should be passed, or existing Minnesota laws clarified, to establish criminal penalties for adults whose carelessness with CBD and THC products result in the endangerment of children. While leaving a bag of CBD gummies on a kitchen counter isn't nearly as dangerous as storing a loaded handgun under a pillow, both pose a risk to children, and adults who put children at risk should be held accountable.

Our fear, however, is that some people might hesitate to call poison control or 911 if they fear legal consequences after their toddler finds a stash of CBD or THC edibles. In the Virginia case mentioned above, the mother allegedly delayed contacting authorities — a delay that authorities say proved fatal to her child. That parent now faces murder and felony child neglect charges.

We won't claim to have the answers, but there must be some middle ground between blanket immunity and aggressive, all-out prosecution of adults whose carelessness results in the poisoning of a child. Other states have years of experience with the problems associated with legal recreational use of marijuana products, and we urge Minnesota officials to draw on that experience to create a workable legal framework — and to avoid repeating the mistakes other states have made.

While that process plays out, we urge everyone to simply exercise common sense. Don't consume edibles in front of children. Store them on high shelves, out of reach of kids, or in some sort of lockbox. Keep an accurate count of how many gummies you have, so that you'll know if some go missing. Don't bring home candy that remotely resembles your CBD or THC products.

And finally, use caution, especially if you have little or no experience in the use of cannabinoids. If you choose to dip your toes into this pond, do it slowly. Legality and widespread availability are no guarantee of safety, even if you're over 21.

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